Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002
Sander
Hicks Interviewed by Straits Times, Singapore
by Yong Shu Hoong
Raw
Edited transcript of the interview. What they
actually printed was heavily redacted. This
is after all, a country where you can't chew
gum, and they beat people with rods.
–SH
What
motivated you to set up Soft Skull Press in the
first place?
I needed a job, and
was getting beat by working so hard at the copy
shop. But I also have a big independent streak,
I like breaking rules, I never think the same
old rules apply to me until I break them and then
a few of them bite me on the butt. I learn things
my way. And I get away with things sometime this
way, too. Soft Skull was one of the things I got
away with.
Did it occur
to you at the onset to link publishing with politics?
Well,
I think everything's political, punk rock, different
styles of painting. I see the question of artistic
innovation as a political question. How much imagination
and creativity and spontaneity is allowed by a
culture? I think political life is reflected by
the life of the arts. Look at this country, we
have a sick political system, a complicit mass
media, and there hasn't been a good painter in
50 years. The music here is awesome, though. Go
figure.
You've been called
the "punk publisher". What exactly does the title
mean?
Well, that was a joke,
really. The Village Voice's sarcastic headline
once called me/Soft Skull, as well as Gary Hustwit
from Incommunicado, and Johnny Temple from Akashic
the "punks of publishing." We knew they were being
sassy, but we're proud of being punks, it's a
subculture that is our worldview, our value system,
it's an active culture, like a dish of mold.
In the past, Soft
Skull Press has churned out poetry, political
works, etc. What
are the factors that guide your decisions in accepting
or rejecting
a book proposal/manuscript?
Just right now, the
new policy is that everyone at the company has
to be excited about it. In my absence, the workers
have taken over, and a direct-action/anarchist/consensus
democracy trend has taken hold. I wasn't sure
it would work when I was the head of the company,
but with me gone, the more activist of the workers
there have created a democratic editorial policy
for all, in which every worker has an equal say.
From what I hear, this has worked real well for
the 12 new books acquired in the last six months.
I'm pretty impressed with them. (good job, Chris,
Tennessee, and David.)
In
the documentary film Horns And Halos, we see you
work as an apartment building's
superintendent, sweeping stairways and corridors,
while running Soft Skull Press from the basement.
Was it a constant problem in getting the cash
needed to keep the operations going? (I read that
at one point, venture capital was contemplated.)
Yeah,
the last two years were really tough. We took
on a lot of debt, and I'm responsible for letting
that happen.
I mean, any new business
is always starved for cash. There are some great
points about small business made by Bertell Ollman
in this book we're about to do (Class Struggle
is the Name of the Game, the memoir of a Marxist
professor who becomes a small businessman to make
an educational board game called Class Struggle.)
Bertell, at the end of the book lays out a few
sharp conclusion, gained from experience: it's
a myth of capitalism that credit/loans/cash for
growth is there for people who deserve it. It's
not. It's there if you're a profitable established
business. The quality of your ideas or the freshness
of your innovation is never really a factor.
Yes, towards the end
of the dot com boom, I did meet some venture capitalists.
I felt that compared to the dot coms, we had a
real business, and perhaps they would go for it.
One did. He was connected, and was going to personally
start his own business, but his start-up crashed
in the Nasdaq meltdown of April 2001, and we never
got a chance to work together. Which is fine,
in the end. He was a good VC, but not a strong
entrepreneur. I'm sure he learned that the hard
way.
After St Martin's
Press withdrew Fortunate Son, you decided to publish
it under
Soft Skull Press. How much of that decision is
due to your desire to let the world read what
you feel is the truth, and how much is clouded
by the book's potential in making some really
good money?
The first priority
was to get a critical book on Bush out. I saw
what his father did in Iran/Contra, the Gulf War,
the family's involvement in the S&L crisis.
Look, it runs in the blood. Bush Sr.'s own FATHER,
Prescott was raising $50 million for the Nazis
on Wall Street in the 1930s. This is a really
shady, powerful family full of dark secrets. They
go to Yale and do cultish rituals in the Skull
& Bones Society, they send all their kids
to elite prep schools and the line continues.
I am an American Marxist. I think the people should
rise up and take these slimy disgusting aristocrats
from power.Before they start new wars. Enough
is enough. And I mean by any means necessary.
For starters, how about Freedom of the Press,
the Bill of Rights actually lived out for real
would be a good start. But that's too much to
just ask for.
Fortunate Son had the
potential to make money. But there were $15 grand
in legal costs for the company in the first year
we published it. We printed 45,000 for $60 grand.
and we shipped out 30,000. About 70% of that 30,000
were returned after we got screwed by 60 Minutes.
And why did the 60 Minutes people treat us like
freaks and con men? One reason is that they wanted
to get Candidate Bush on the show in upcoming
weeks. It's all about ratings and ad dollars to
them. The truth is secondary. I later accused
Producer Jay Kernis of this, and his only response
was a petulant, bitter, "yeah, and if it makes
you feel better, we didn't eventually even GET
Bush on the show, he went on 60 Minutes II." So,
they tried to please the powerful Bush Family,
and it didn't work. It's hard to feel sorry for
mediocrity and pandering.
RE: Well, on
hindsight, did
Fortunate Son make money?
Now that the lawsuit
and the media distortion and the campaign are
over, the book is doing better. We printed 10,000
in June 2001, and they are sold out. We just printed
7,500 more. Of course, along the way, we lost
Jim, and I miss him.
What do you
think is the importance of small independent presses
(like Soft
Skull Press) to society, as compared to major
publishing houses?
It's like we're little
PT Boats, and they are the aircraft carriers.
We are faster, lighter, we can sting, and zip
out of there. They can launch the heavy firepower
(advertising, corporate media publicity machines,
special promotions, special merchandising tie-ins)
but that means that their entire worldview is
different. Mostly, they just want to keep the
big slow boat moving forward in its massive profitable
way. They don't care who they run over. We want
to sink not only their big dumb boat, but the
entire political and economic value system they
fight for.
Did the Fortunate
Son experience - in particular, working with J
H Hatfield
- change your perception of the author-publisher
relationship?
Ha! No, it was very
similar to other author/publisher relationships.
I mention this in the film, words to the effect
of "Jim is actually very similar to our other
authors. He's got problems, but then, they all
do...we all do." I have found most Soft Skull
writers to be brilliant, but at times, difficult
people. Exactly the kind of people you want to
publish, but you don't want to be in business
with them. And unfortunately a publishing contract
is a business deal. Jim Hatfield was an Xtreme
version of a troubled, self-conscious, cursed
and very talented ego.
Why should Fortunate
Son be classified as essential reading for Americans
as well as people from around the world?
It's the book on Bush
that is more critical than the others. Hatfield's
biography has a nose for controversy, hypocrisy
and inconsistency. He should be alive and writing
others. He's not. Hatfield's critics say he should
have annotated his sources better, which is true.
They also dismiss his book as a "clip job" which
is only sort of true. If you're dismissing the
book because it's an assembly of others' facts
and research, well Hatfield takes these facts
and sketches out a pattern: Bush never had to
play by the playbook of life that the common people
do. Every step of the way, someone gave him a
big hand, and rewarded his failures. He cashed
in on his family name all the way to the White
House.
Tell us more
about Horns And Halos. Do you feel that the film
gives an honest,
objective take on the controversy surrounding
Fortunate Son?
Well, I would be the
last to know, wouldn't I? I shouldn't be asked
what's the best representation of my life. If
you want objective, ask the moderator. Or a moderate.
(Maybe someone at the New York Times, ha
ha ha.)
I am surprised at how
much I liked it. I mean, I sometimes got surly
and snapped at the filmmakers, So I was worried
that some of that tension would come out. But
it didn't.
Instead, I think it's
pretty fun. I'm weirdly distanced from that life.
I don't live there anymore, I don't sweep and
mop floors as the Super, I don't even live in
the City. But I have a fondness for those two
years. When I saw the film, I was surprised at
how much I was able to kick back and enjoy this
character who runs a small press, sings in a punk
band, works as a super. I could relate to that
guy. Although he seems a little, loopy, sometimes....you
know?
The first time I was
struck at how polished and salesmanlike I was,
wearing ties all the time, trying to put the best
foot forward, get the book out there in a credible,
professional way. I was struck at my "poise",
not totally impressed with it, it was almost too
much. The second time, I was OK with the way I
did things, the shoe shine and firm handshaking
personality were right for what the book needed,
and for what the company needed. I was playing
my role in history to the hilt.
A journalist
who saw your play Breaking Light wrote of "Hicks-ism".
How does
Hicksism compare with Bushism?
Hicksism is about liberation.
It's about finding what is freeing, and radically
liberating out there in the world of ideas, and
growing those ideas and methods so that this planet
can become a just world, a place where everyone
gets to eat, and be able to take care of each
other. Hickism is about looking at history in
a way that blends Marx, the Book of Isaiah, the
New Testament, and parts of the American political
tradition into a working hybrid that is democratic,
grassroots, and can go straight through solid
steel.
Bushism, on the other
hand, is a straw dog. Bush is a puppet for the
oil, aluminum and pharmaceutical industries that
elected him. They let Enron come to the White
House and write the White House energy policy.
They let Enron appoint their own regulators. Too
bad we don't have a media in this country with
some balls. Just a bunch of greasy upper middle-class
nebbishes. Bushism relies on them.
Did the September
11 incident make you more optimistic or cynical
about America?
I subscribe to the
theory that something stinks about 9/11. The official
story on what happened and why just doesn't hold
together. I don't have all the answers, but I
have a piece on sanderhicks.com that tries to
look at the best of the evidence of a conspiracy,
and tried to ask the right questions about
9/11.
Who are we as a culture,
as a people?
What does "American" mean? What do we
stand for? Who did this to us and why?
Is it true you're
no longer actively involved with Soft Skull Press?
Did you
decide to give it up or were you coerced by circumstances
to relinquish control and ownership?
I voluntarily took
a leave of absence that ironically took effect
on 9/10/01.
I recently listed the
five main reasons, in a note to a friend:
>Jim Hatfield
killed himself.
>I lost my Superintendent
job, and thus, free apartment.
>I needed a break.
>Soft Skull workers
wanted to take over and well they should.
>Soft Skull worker/investors
wanted to try their hand at a tighter hold
on the financial reins. As well they should
try.
What are you
working on right now, in terms of literary, artistic
and musical pursuits?
White Collar Crime is
about to go on a three week tour of the US and
Canada.
Right at the start
of this tour, I'm launching sanderhicks.com and
a new print newspaper, The Times of Crime,
a place to print new political writing and big
picture historical reporting.
I just took a part
time job being an organizer for a community group
fighting racism here in Long Island. I'm booking
punk shows sometimes. I'm supposed to be writing
a play but I haven't been too good at getting
that started. To make money for the van before
tour I've been working as a carpenter, outside,
up in the air on a ladder, hammering cedar clapboard
siding onto gargantuan homes of the ultra-rich.
Sometimes you get tired, and you just want to
say, well, for someone to build a house this ugly
and this huge, they MUST have done something to
deserve this much money. But then I say, no, you're
just getting tired. No one deserves to build a
pizza hut pyramid-shaped monstrosity such as this,
no one deserves to have this much space and land
when so many are hungry, without health care,
without hope.